On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and
said to them, “Peace be with you.” 20
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. 21
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” 22
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23
If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin,[d] was
not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into
his side, I will never believe.”26 Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27
Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” 28
Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Yesterday we began looking at these verses and the peace that the Lord says is ours. Jesus’ second greeting of peace is in verse 21, here Jesus speaks to his commissioning
of the disciples, as He had been sent by the Father, he now sends them out. Jesus is saying to His disciples, to us: This is not going to be easy…not in this broken world, not while dealing with your own sin. Christ like life is difficult. People say; “Well,
now we live by faith” as if living by faith were a stroll in the park!
Living by faith is the hardest, most trying, most in need of a disciplined life that there could be…living by faith requires seeing things unseen and living in their
certainty and so much so, that your life makes little sense to those without faith. To live by faith dealing with all you will have to deal with, you need an otherworldly, peace.
The final greeting of peace in verse 26 may be in regard to the anxiety the disciples have in the success of their own efforts, even toward those who do not yet understand…such
as Thomas. Remember for one week they would have been trying to convince Thomas that they have seen the Lord, that Jesus is alive, but he refuses to believe them, they couldn’t convince him.
Jesus had spoken to the disciples about this peace earlier in John 14:27 and 16:33 Jesus is now bringing those texts to the front and these promises teach us something
of the nature of this peace. Jesus says that this peace is not from this world, it lies beyond and above this world and pertains to the supernatural, not that which naturally rises within man.
Do you see why man in and of himself cannot create peace, not true peace, not eternal peace, for it comes from a different environment, from a different world, the
peace of this world is at best temporary and partial and at worse totally empty? This peace of which Jesus speaks is inseparably bound to his very person, in other words the two, Jesus and this other worldly peace are a package deal, they cannot be separated.
For him to leave his peace with us, is another way of saying that He is with us. He says in John 16:33 “That,
IN ME, you might have peace.” That is, by being joined to Christ we have peace. Here is a mistake that we so often make. We think we have to create unity,
we have to create joy, we have to create peace, but it is not about our doing. Unity, joy, and peace have been created by Jesus, we have those things, when we truly understand what it means to have Him. We don’t create them, we enter into them, by faith.
More directly: If you are anxious, if you are discontent, living with frustration, then most assuredly your eyes are on the circumstances, and not on Jesus, because
HE is peace. We want to think our circumstances are the problem, and they may be a problem but they are not THE problem. The circumstances in the world are difficult but what did Jesus say: Take heart, I have overcome the world.
The OT helps us at this point. As you know the OT people would greet each other not with hello, but with “peace”, or shalom. The word shalom, peace, has in mind a
place, or an existence free of fear and free of anxiety. It is as if saying when you run into Bob on the street, instead of hello you say, “Bob, may abundance be yours, that you may be free from fear and anxiety.” But that takes too long to say, so
just say Shalom.
The OT sees such peace belonging to God’s goodness, where bounty and provision is made and to such a degree that there is no reason, no place given for worry and anxiety.
John gives us an indication of this in his gospel, of this bounty, the abundant life, as it is seen in the signs that Jesus performs that serve the purpose of revealing the glory of God in His Son.
This is shown to us when the best wine comes forth in abundance at the wedding at Cana and when we see the multiplication of the bread and fish and 5,000 are fed,
and there is not only enough but more than enough. Seen again, in the deliverance from disease as a man who is lame from birth is healed by a word, a man born blind, sees and understands even though it costs him his place in Jewish society; And even triumphs
over death when Jesus calls Lazarus to life.
In other words, what is in view is a world of provision and abundance, and, to such an extent that worry, fear, anxiety is unthinkable. Think of it this way, is Jesus
worried as He sits at the Father’s right hand? Is there worry in heaven? If we have this peace, or as John says before, if we abide in the vine, if Jesus is truly ours then we know this peace, because we know Him.
John illustrates the principle that without Him who is our peace, we can do nothing in two profound scenes. First in chapter 20, when the 10 disciples who have seen
the risen Christ cannot convince Thomas, who had not seen him? Thomas will not have this peace and will not believe until there is an encounter with the risen Christ…and no one can convince him. It will be the presence of the risen Jesus that changes us, and
nothing else. It will not be our grasp of demographics, or our adopting the world’s model for running the church like a business that we might be efficient, it will not be because we get more education.
The answer isn’t in programs, it isn’t in having a cool pastor, for which I am grateful. (I have in my life been called many things, cool, has never been one of them.)
The first 3 ministers at Ephesus were John, Paul and Timothy and yet still the Ephesian church lost their love for Jesus…the answer is not in man!
It will be the presence of the risen Christ and our love for and fellowship with Him that empowers, first our worship and then our living as the church. So important
is this message in John, that it is repeated again in chapter 21, again by way of illustration:
Peter and others are fishing…they fish all night and catch nothing. Jesus greets them and they do not recognize him and tells them to cast their nets on the right
side of the boat and they catch so many that they cannot hall it in. Nothing but futility throughout the night and then in 21:4, just as the day was breaking, (notice again our darkness and light themes) and then at Christ’s command, abundance…do you see?
Night…futility…without me you can do nothing…darkness. Then the light breaks, the command of the resurrected Jesus and abundance, that is John’s point throughout His
gospel.
This is what we do in worship…encounter the resurrected Christ. Week by week, Sabbath by Sabbath, the risen Christ meets with the gathered saints on the day He appointed
that we might know Him. Why do you come to church? John would say: Because it is here that you meet with the risen Jesus. He has set this day for that very purpose…He has made worship on the Lord’s Day to have what no other day has.
Now if you have the opportunity to meet with the risen Christ according to His commandment, His wishes, how and why would you ever stay away? Why would you ever miss
a worship service morning or evening if that is what we really believed was happening? We have the opportunity, the blessing, the honor of meeting together with God the Son, the One sacrificed for us, on the day He commands, the One we say is our Lord, why
would not want to do so as much as possible!
Brothers and sisters, come to worship because it is in worship that you meet with the Risen Jesus; in worship that you understand more deeply His love for you and
yours for Him. Like Thomas, you go from being someone who says they believe in Jesus, even someone who really wants to believe in Him, to someone who is re-created, root and branch, by Jesus. It is in the presence of the resurrected Savior that we have an
over-abundance, a surplus, a Shalom, that we might live in a peace that is endless.
Prayer: Father, forgive my dull and sullen heart when worship draws close. I have too often treated meeting with the risen Christ as though it were not the most
blessed of realities. I thank you for changing my darkness and futility into light and abundance. May the power of the risen Christ fill me that I might be transformedinto holiness and righteousness to Your glory. Through Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.
Hymn: It is Well With My Soul